Important: Due Date for New and Renewal Project Applications for the MCoC Application in Response to HUD’s FY2015 NOFA CoC Competition

To All Maine Continuum of Care Members Agencies:

On Friday, September 18th, 2015, HUD announced the Notice of Funding Availability for the 2015 Continuum of Care Program Competition. In addition to renewal projects, CoC’s may submit new projects created through reallocation, permanent housing bonus projects, CoC Planning, and UFA Costs (if eligible).
The full MCoC Consolidated Application is due to HUD on November 20, 2015 and includes all new and renewal project applications. HUD requires that ALL project applications much be submitted to the CoC no later than 30 days before the application deadline of November 20, 2015.

Therefore, all project applications (including new and renewal projects) must be submitted no later than Tuesday, October 20, 2015 at 4:00 pm. All applications must be submitted through HUD’s e-snaps electronic application system in order to be considered in the FY2015 Maine Consolidated Continuum of Care Application for funding.

HUD also requires that CoC’s notify project applications no later than 15 days before the 2015 application deadline regarding whether their project applications will be included as part of the CoC Consolidated Application submission. This means that projects will be scored and placed in Tiers 1 and 2 and all projects will be notified in writing by Friday, November 6, 2015. Project applicants that are not selected will be provided with an explanation for the decision to reject the project(s). Applicants that are not selected for submission will be able to appeal the decision as described in the NOFA announcement.

In the FY 2015 CoC Program Competition, in addition to requests for renewal projects and CoC planning and UFA Costs project requests, CoC’s may submit requests for new projects through the process of reallocation or the permanent housing bonus.

1. Through the reallocation process CoC’s may create the following type of new projects:
a) CoC’s may create new permanent supportive housing projects where all beds will be dedicated for use by chronically homeless individuals and families, as defined in 24 CFR 578.3.
b) CoC’s may create new rapid re-housing projects for homeless individuals and families who enter directly from the streets or emergency shelters, youth up to age 24, and persons who meet the criteria of paragraph (4) of the definition of homeless.
c) CoC’s may create a new Supportive Services Only (SSO) project specifically for a centralized or coordinated assessment system.
d) CoC’s may create a new dedicated Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) project for the costs at 24 CFR 578.37 that must be carried out by the HMIS Lead.

2. CoC’s may create new projects through the permanent housing bonus up to 15 percent of the CoC’s FPRN for the following types of new projects:
a. CoC’s may create new permanent supportive housing projects that will serve 100 percent chronically homeless families and individuals, and
b. CoC’s may create new rapid re-housing projects that will serve homeless individuals and families coming directly from the streets or emergency shelters, and includes persons fleeing domestic violence situations and other persons meeting the criteria of paragraph (4) of the definition of homeless.
HUD will continue the Tier 1 and Tier 2 funding process; however the process in the FY 2015 Program Competition is completely different from the past CoC competitions, so applicants are strongly encouraged to thoroughly review the information provided in the NOFA. A report that lists each CoC’s Annual Renewal Demand (ARD) Tier 1 amount, Tier 2 amounts, and permanent housing bonus amount available will be posted to the HUD Exchange website no earlier than October 9, 2015.

Please note that the HUD is requiring that grant agreements for FY2014 funds must be executed by December 31, 2015 in order to be eligible for renewal. In addition, HUD is requiring that all attachments that correspond to the attachment list in e-snaps must contain accurate and complete information and must be dated between July 1, 2015 and November 20, 2015. This includes updated Form 50070 (Drug Free Work Place) and HUD-2880 (Applicant/Recipient Disclosure).

If you are not the person who will be submitting the New or Renewal Project Application(s) for your agency this year, please forward this information to them and include me in that message so that I can contact them directly.
To access e-snaps, training materials, and other helpful information please
go to: https://www.hudexchange.info/e-snaps/fy-2015-coc-program-nofa-coc-program-competition/.